Mumbai Indians (MI) bowlers were blown away by Rajasthan Royals (RR) openers Yashasvi Jaiswal and Vaibhav Sooryavanshi in a rain-shortened game at Barsapara Cricket Stadium on April 7. Sooryavanshi took on MI's bowling spearhead Jasprit Bumrah, hitting him for two sixes. After Sooryavanshi's 14-ball 39, Jaiswal continued the carnage, scoring an unbeaten 32-ball 77. As MI lost to RR by 27 runs, skipper Hardik Pandya blamed bowlers for the defeat, especially for conceding 58 runs in three overs of powerplay.
“I think we didn't execute the deliveries which we were supposed to and they played well. Our bowlers need to take the responsibility. As a bowling group, we were not at all up to the mark and they played tremendous cricket,” Pandya said.
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“I would not put this game on the batting. This was definitely the bowling unit which had to take responsibility. It's T20 cricket, it's about always bowling those right couple of balls. And if you see 27, that means we are talking about five good balls and five less sixes. So if we would have executed the right balls, yeah, we would have been in the game. But as I said, their openers kind of enforced couple of overs, threw us out of the game. Then throughout we were catching up and yeah, we fell short,” he added.
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RR batters unleash carnage
Deepak Chahar opened the bowling and was hit for four fours and a six by Jaiswal. After Bumrah conceded 14 runs, featuring two sixes, Trent Boult was taken to the cleaners. Boult conceded 22 runs, including three sixes off openers' bat.
Shardul Thakur conceded 18 runs in his first over but managed to get the wicket of Sooryavanshi. When he departed, RR were 80/1 after five overs. In the next over, Allah Ghazanfar dismissed Dhruv Jurel for a single-digit score. But, Jaiswal continued to fire and got to his fifty from 23 balls. Pandya was relatively economical, conceding 17 runs from two overs. Then, Ghazanfar got the wicket of Parag. Jaiswal managed to hit Bumrah for a six as well. In the final over, Thakur went for 18 runs as Jaiswal hit three fours.
In reply, MI lost half the side for 46 runs in first five overs. Naman Dhir and Sherfane Rutherford's cameos took MI close to the target but they ended up posting 123/9, losing the match by 27 runs.